Before the blogosphere explodes in the age-old argument of which movie is worse, Terminator 3 or Terminator Salvation, let me state for the record that I think both movies are bad. However, Terminator 3 is watchable-bad (with some highly destructive stunts using real honest-to-God vehicles and a pretty well done bleak ending) while Terminator Salvation is an unwatchable mess full of nonsense CGI and a script with two A stories fighting each other for the chance to bore you to death.
That being said, I think Mostow made the right call in deleting the above scene from the final cut. It made me laugh while at the same time caused a sharp, stabbing pain in my brain.
I watched TERMINATOR SALVATION a few days ago and it was just really dull. But McG is still a far better action director that Michael Bay is. At least McG has a sense of geography and likes to actually show you what’s going on.
Apparently the original script for the film was much different. If I remember right Bale was approached to play Marcus Wright. John Connor was only in the last few minutes of the film and is only heard through radio transmissions throughout the film.
It ended with John Connor dying and Marcus getting Connor’s skin grafted to him. So the film ended with a Terminator actually becoming John Connor and continuing to lead the resistance.
Yeah, it’s still dumb but at least it would have been one A-story going through the film. And word is that once Christian Bale decided he wanted to play John Connor the whole thing was re-written to accommodate him. So that’s why the movie is as cluttered and unfocused as it is.
And I hate to diss a fellow countryman, but Sam Worthington really needs to work on his accents for the future.
Replacing the real John Connor with a Terminator-with-a-human-heart is an amazingly dumb idea. The only shred of a decent story in TS was the thrown-away subplot where John Connor can’t get the powers-that-be to believe he’s the pre-destined savior of humanity.
It’s amazing how Cameron set up two sci-fi franchises with clear directions for their storylines, and how the sequels went off the rails into nonsense.
The first two Terminator movies clearly set up the idea that certain major events are unchangeable (Skynet causing a nuclear apocalypse), but individual decisions can affect the final outcome. Thus, the Terminator franchise is about using foreknowledge of what’s to come in order to minimize the damage so humanity has a chance at defeating the machines.
Aliens made it even simpler: Ripley says if one of those things (Aliens) gets down here (Earth), then it’s all over. Where the hell is THAT movie, and why wasn’t Cameron making Aliens vs. Earth instead of AVATAR?